CCAR RESPONSA
5767.1
Berakhah and Gender
She’elah
A member of the congregation would like an aliyah to the Torah but objects to the use of masculine God language in the traditional berakhah (blessing or benediction). She wishes to use an alternative berakhah which is gender feminine (something along the lines of “Berukhah At Yah.”). The custom of our congregation has been to use the traditional Hebrew for the Torah blessings. Is the Torah blessing a private blessing or a blessing made on behalf of those gathered? If it is private, it would seem meritorious to permit the blessing as a way of encouraging the mitzvah of reading Torah and as a way of honoring the various conceptions of God held by members of the community. Should a member called to the Torah be permitted to use the blessing of his or her choice? (Rabbi David Thomas, Sudbury, MA)
Teshuvah
1. Introduction. At first glance, the answer to this she’elah might seem clear and obvious. The reading of the Torah is indeed a public act, the fulfillment of a communal obligation.[1] Thus, it is formally called keri’at hatorah berabim, “the public reading of the Torah” and traditionally must take place in the presence of a “public,” that is, a minyan.[2] The person who receives the aliyah (the oleh/ah) enables the community to fulfill its obligation to hear the Torah reading. Thus, when he or she recites the customary berakhot the congregation must respond “amen,” since the Torah reading is a communal, rather than an individual mitzvah.[3] On this basis, the individual is not entitled to depart from the communal minhag (custom). Acting as the representative for the congregation when called to the Torah, he or she must recite the berakhot in accordance with the congregation’s pattern of observance.
In another sense, though, the answer is not obvious at all. A congregation is empowered to alter its minhag, and implicit in this she’elah is the request that the congregation formally permit this individual to recite alternative berakhhot when she is called to the Torah. Should the congregation grant her that permission? There are good arguments on both sides of the issue.
On the one hand, the congregant might cite the long record of liturgical innovation in Reform Judaism. We Reform Jews have always been ready to amend our inherited liturgical forms in favor of new structures of prayer that reflect our contemporary religious values.[4] One of these values is our commitment to gender equality, our insistence that women be included with men as equal partners in all aspects of communal life.[5] This congregant objects to the male-gender form of the traditional berakhah, perhaps because its presentation of God as a commanding Lord and King “has reinforced forms of patriarchal power and male privilege in the world.”[6] We do not wish our liturgy to convey such a message, and we would therefore find this to be a strong Reform Jewish argument in her behalf.
On the other hand, that very same history indicates that, alongside our record of innovation, we Reform Jews have also maintained much of traditional Jewish liturgical practice. For example, it is the minhag of this congregation, and of every Reform congregation with which we are familiar, to begin and to conclude each aliyah (section of the Torah reading) with the customary berakhot. In doing so, the congregation has accepted upon itself the discipline of a particular liturgical form. That is to say, a berakhah is not simply a “blessing,” a lyrical utterance of praise. It is a formal ritual act, and like all such acts it is defined by the halakhah, traditional Jewish law. It is the halakhah that tells us what a berakhah is, how it should be formulated, and the circumstances under which it may be recited. These details cannot be dismissed as mere “Orthodox” minutiae. Given that we Reform Jews have adopted the traditional Jewish practice to recite berakhot at appropriate ritual moments, the rules that govern that practice are not “Orthodox” rules but Jewish rules; they are our rules as well.[7] This does not mean, of course, that we are constrained to interpret the halakhah as do other Jews.[8] It does mean, however, that the form of a berakhah is acceptable only when it meets the specifications that the halakhah – as we understand it – demands of that ritual act.
In addressing this she’elah, therefore, we want to focus upon two lines of inquiry. First, we will ask whether the halakhah, the rules and principles that define the structure of Jewish liturgy, can accommodate the sort of innovation that this congregant seeks. And second, we want to consider the question in light of our movement’s history of liturgical innovation and, as well, its continuing attachment to Jewish tradition.
2. Halakhic Considerations. Our halakhic discussion begins with this Talmudic passage:[9]
Rav says: A benediction that does not include the mention God’s name (hazkarat hashem) is not a valid benediction. R. Yochanan says: A benediction that does not include the mention of God’s sovereignty over the world (malkhut) is not a valid benediction. Abaye says: Rav’s position is the correct one, for it is supported by a baraita:[10] “‘I have neither transgressed nor neglected any of Your commandments’ (Deut. 26:13). ‘I have neither transgressed’ means that I have not failed to recite the proper berakhah,[11] while ‘nor neglected’ means that I have not forgotten to include the mention of God’s name in the benediction.” And this baraita says nothing about “sovereignty.” How would R. Yochanan respond? He would read the baraita thus: “nor neglected” means “I have not forgotten to mention God’s name and God’s sovereignty in the benediction.”
The authorities hold that the law follows R. Yochanan’s position:[12] a valid benediction must include shem umalkhut, the mention of God’s name and of God’s sovereignty over the world.[13] According to universal custom, “God’s name” is the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable four-letter yod-heh-vav-heh,[14] which in its pronunciation Adonai signifies “Lord” or “Master.” “Sovereignty over the world” refers to the words melekh ha`olam (literally “king of the universe).”[15] There are some exceptions to this rule, the most obvious of which is the tefilah, where none of the berakhot mention God’s sovereignty (malkhut).[16] Halakhists account for these exceptions in various ways. For example, the berakhot that conclude each paragraph of the tefilah (chatimot) do not require malkhut because they are part of a series (seder) of benedictions, and each benediction in such a series “relies” upon the mention of God’s sovereignty in the first berakhah.[17] As for the first benediction of the tefilah (the Avot), which also omits the word melekh, the phrases “the God of Abraham” (elohei Avraham) or “the great, mighty, and awesome God” (ha’el hagdol hagibor vehanora) in that benediction serve as substitute expressions of God’s sovereign power in the world.[18]
Given that there are exceptions to the rule of shem umalkhut, we should ask if other deviations from the traditional version might meet halakhic standards? The answer, apparently, is “yes.” For one thing, the halakhah accepts as valid a blessing recited in translation.[19] From this fact, the estimable 20th-century authority R. Yisrael Meir Kagan (author of the Mishnah Berurah) learns[20] that a benediction recited in Hebrew can be valid even if it does not include the Tetragrammaton, so long as it substitutes in its place any of God’s proper names – i.e., the azkarot, the names of God that, when written in Hebrew, must never be erased.[21] His point is that if a translation of God’s name may substitute for the Tetragrammaton, then surely any of these Hebrew azkarot must be just as acceptable.[22]
Jewish law, therefore, suggests two ways of meeting this congregant’s request. She could, first of all, say the benediction in gender-neutral English: “Praised are You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the Universe…”.[23] Should she prefer to recite it in Hebrew, she might replace the name Adonai (to which she objects because it connotes “Lord”) with one of the other azkarot, such as Elohim (“God”). “Yah,”a shortened form of yod-heh-vav-heh, is not listed among those azkarot and would not, therefore, be halakhicly acceptable as a name of God in a berakhah. For “sovereignty” she might replace melekh with the expression elohei Avraham veSarah, which as we have seen functions as the symbolic equivalent of malkhut in the first benediction of the tefilah.[24] The rest of the berakhah formula could be feminized (Berukhah at, asher bachrah banu, etc.). This language, of course, would not agree grammatically with the azkarot, which are all masculine in form (for that matter, so is the name “Yah”).[25] Yet if we conceive of God as being above and beyond all considerations of gender, we can with integrity decide that God might accurately be addressed by way of masculine or feminine nouns, verbs, and adjectives.[26]
3. Tradition, the Hebrew Liturgy, and Reform Judaism. We have discovered that a benediction structured along the lines suggested in our she’elah might meet the minimal[27] requirements for a berakhah under Jewish law. Yet we should not confuse “minimal” with optimal; the fact that a particular act might be valid under the rules does not, in and of itself, mean that it is a good thing and that we should adopt it. In this particular case, in fact, we believe the opposite conclusion is warranted. The synagogue should insist upon the traditional version of the berakhah in its congregational worship services.
We base this statement, first and foremost, upon our reverence for Jewish tradition. It is true, as we have said, that Reform Judaism is accepting of liturgical innovation, particularly innovation that reflects our commitment to gender equality. Yet along with this we have noted that “we Reform Jews have also maintained much of traditional Jewish liturgical practice.” This includes, in particular, the accepted minhag among our congregations to recite the traditional berakhah formula during the Torah ritual and, indeed, throughout their public worship. Let us understand clearly what that minhag represents. When we maintain traditional forms of observance, we do so intentionally, not out of simple habit or inertia but as a conscious act of Jewish identification. By adopting such observances, we make the explicit statement that our Reform Jewish religious life is an identifiably Jewish one. With all our embrace of ritual creativity, our practice is not exclusively our own invention, a collection of behaviors meaningful onlywithin the context of the North American Reform synagogue. Our forms of practice are “Jewish” to the extent that they affirm our roots in the Jewish past and our ongoing connection with the religious life of Jews throughout the world. In defining Reform Judaism to ourselves and to others, therefore, it is not sufficient to point to our love of “innovation.” We must also emphasize the opposite side of the coin: our recognition that “Judaism is the historical religious experience of the Jewish people”[28] and our desire to give voice to our faith through ritual forms that evoke our sense of that experience.
The history of our religious practice, including our liturgical practice, is therefore in large part the record of our efforts to draw a proper balance between these goals, to reach a satisfying accommodation between our dedication to Jewish tradition and to our liberal ethical and cultural values. In our prayerbooks, we now compose both the translations and the stand-alone sections in gender-neutral English.[29] We have also introduced changes into some of the Hebrew texts, such as the names of the Matriarchs in the first benediction of the tefilah.[30] Yet we have not seen fit to redraft the entirety of our Hebrew liturgy to remove any and all references to God in the masculine gender. Thus, even in that introductory berakhah of the tefilah we continue to address God in the second person masculine singular (Barukh atah) and to describe God in the third person masculine singular (hagadol hagibor vehanora). In the Shema Yisrael, we continue to declare God to be “One” in the masculine form of that word – echad – rather than in the feminine achat. To repeat: our preservation of the traditional liturgical forms should not be interpreted as accidental or as evidence of negligence on our part. Rather, these texts as they are, taken from the Bible, the Rabbinic literature, and the sidur, are the very substance of Jewish prayer. Through centuries of use they have come to play a central and indispensable role in our religious lives. We have therefore preferred to leave largely intact the language of the prophets, the poets, the psalmists, and the sages who wrote them.
We do not believe that our decision to retain much of the traditional Hebrew liturgy, even when it is expressed in masculine language, compromises our commitment to gender equality. We say this for two reasons. The first has to do with the nature of Hebrew grammar: the so-called “masculine” formulation is in fact an inclusive one, since Hebrew uses the masculine to describe persons or things of unspecified gender or groups of mixed gender. The second has to do with our own liberal Jewish outlook, which determines how we think about and talk about the words we pray. We hold that God is above and beyond all considerations of gender, and no traditional liturgical text or formula, no matter how “masculine” its literal formulation, should call that commitment into question.
And therein lies our difficulty with this congregant’s request. If the concern is that our liturgy be gender-neutral and inclusive, then the formula Berukhah at fails, since it is unequivocally feminine and cannot be construed as neutral. To allow its recitation would be to say, in effect, that there is only gender and no neutrality: God is either “male” or “female,” and we must choose between those two alternatives. This would necessarily imply that the traditional berakhah is a “masculine” and not a neutral one. It would send the unmistakable message that those who say Barukh atah Adonai – that is, the overwhelming majority of our people – are promoting a masculine conception of God. We do not believe this. We believe that when we recite the traditional liturgy, we are identifying our own prayer with that of our people in ages past, who authored these words and bequeathed them to us. We do not believe that we are reinforcing “forms of patriarchal power and male privilege in the world.” Our Reform Jewish teaching, preaching, and record of liturgical creativity contradict that message; they establish beyond a doubt our movement’s devotion to the concept and practice of gender neutrality. We should avoid taking actions that suggest otherwise.
4. Conclusion. The form of berakhah that this congregant wishes to recite meets the minimum standards that Jewish law sets for a benediction, provided that the rules governing the mention of God’s name and of God’s sovereignty are properly observed. For this reason, she may certainly use it in private worship or as part of ritual observances in her home. The synagogue service, however, as a communal, public setting, is another matter. For the reasons we have outlined – our devotion to the linguistic tradition of traditional Jewish prayer and our commitment to gender neutrality in our liturgy – we would discourage the congregation from permitting the use of this alternative berakhah form in its public worship.[31]
NOTES
1. The tradition ascribes the institution of the public Torah reading to enactments (takanot) of Moses and Ezra; see B. Bava Kama 82a and Yad, Tefilah 12:1.
2. M. Megilah 4:3; Yad, Tefilah 12:3; Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 143:1.
3. B. Sotah 39b; Yad, Tefilah 12:6; Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 143:5 and Mishnah Berurah ad loc., no. 17.
4. For example, Reform prayerbooks have excised traditional liturgical passages that petition God for the rebuilding of the Temple, the re-institution of sacrificial worship, the resurrection of the dead, the advent of a personal Messiah, and the like. On the history and development of Reform Jewish liturgy, see Jakob J. Petuchowski, Prayerbook Reform in Europe: The Liturgy of European Liberal and Reform Judaism (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1968); Eric L. Friedland, “Were Our Mouths Filled With Song”: Studies in Liberal Jewish Liturgy (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1997); and the two volumes of Gates of Understanding edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman (New York: CCAR, 1977, and New York: CCAR, 1984).
5. Our prayerbooks, for example, now commonly use gender-neutral English, and we have also altered the traditional Hebrew text in various places to reflect this commitment. The most notable example of such a change is the insertion of the names of the Matriarchs (imahot) in the first benediction of the tefilah or amidah. For an argument that this innovation accords with traditional liturgical halakhah, see our responsum “Matriarchs in the Tefilah,” Responsa Committee no. 5763.6 (http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=6&year=5763 ).
6. Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), xvii (explaining her view that the traditional Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha`olam “is an example of dead metaphor”).
7. For a more extended version of this argument, see our responsa “A Non-Traditional Sukkah,” Teshuvot for the Nineties, no. 5755.4, pp. 91-96 (http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=4&year=57550 ) and “A Defective ‘Holocaust’ Torah Scroll,” Responsa Committee no. 5760.3 (http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=3&year=5760) .
8. On the contrary: all Jewish communities interpret the halakhah from the standpoint of their own particular social and theological perspective. This is precisely what the Responsa Committee – and indeed the entire Reform halakhic process – has done throughout its history. When we interpret the traditional Jewish legal sources, we do so consciously and explicitly from the perspective of contemporary Reform Jews. Our point here is that all Jews must interpret the sources from their own perspective, for the activity of interpretation must begin from the standpoint of the particular community of interpretation. On this view Orthodoxy is but one of several possible vantage points from which to read and understand the sources. We therefore should not fall into the common misperception of identifying the Orthodox interpretation of the halakhah as the halakhah.
9. B. Berakhot 40b.
10. That is, a text dating from the period of the Tanaim, roughly the first two centuries of the Common Era. Rav, R. Yochanan, and Abaye are Amoraim, the name given to the rabbinic scholars during the period of the Talmud (ca. 200-500 C.E.). If a Tanaitic source can be cited in support of the viewpoint of an Amora, then that counts as a strong proof on behalf of that viewpoint.
11. The benediction over the separation of tithes from one’s agricultural produce.
12. On the grounds that the Talmud has successfully defended that position from the critique offered by Abaye. See as well Y. Berakhot 9:1 (12d), where Rav is quoted as requiring malkhut in the formula for the benediction. Tosafot (Berakhot 54a, s.v. haro’eh), in turn, cites this passage from the Yerushalmi in support of its ruling that “all these berakhot (i.e., the ones mentioned in M. Berakhot 9:1) must include the mention of God’s name and of God’s sovereignty.” See also Sefer Ha’eshkol, Hilkhot Birkhot Hashachar, 5a.
13. The Geonic compilation Halakhot Gedolot (ed. Hildesheimer, v. 1, 82) explains that the Talmud’s defense of R. Yochanan’s position is an indication that it decides in accordance with his view. See also Alfasi to Berakhot 40b; Yad, Berakhot 1:5; Tosafot, Berakhot 40b, s.v. amar; Nachmanides, Torat Ha’adam, Inyan Harefu’ah, Chavel ed., p. 4; Shibolei Haleket, Seder Berakhot, ch. 165; Hilkhot Harosh, Berakhot 6:23; Sefer Kolbo, ch. 25; Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 214.
14. “Universal,” at least, since Tanaitic times. See Tosefta Berakhot 6:20 (ed. Lieberman; 6:26 in the traditional printed editions) and Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshutah ad loc.: some sects shied away from reciting the Tetragrammaton in the berakhah, and their practice was branded “heretical” by the Rabbis.
15. On the early history and development of the berakhah as a liturgical form see Yosef Heinemann, Hatefilah betekufat hatanaim veha’amoraim (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978), 52-66. At 61-62, he suggests that while Barukh atah Adonai is quite ancient (the formula is already present in the Qumran texts), melekh ha`olam comes later (hence the disagreement between the third-century Amoraim Rav and R. Yochanan in B. Berakhot 40b; see at n. 9, above). The decision to mention God’s sovereignty in the berakhah (and, for that matter, to recite malhuyot verses in the tefilah on Rosh Hashanah (M. Rosh Hashanah 4:5) may therefore have been an act of protest against the deification of the emperor in Roman cultic practice.
16. Historians have their own explanations for this fact. Heinemann (see note 15), for example, notes that the tefilah is a creation of the Tanaim and therefore predates the Amoraic dispute over whether malkhut must be included in the berakhah.
17. Yad, Berakhot 1:5. The technical term for these benedictions is berakhah hasemukhah lechavertah, literally “a benediction that relies/rests upon the one preceding it.” The benedictions recited over keri’at hatorah are good examples of this rule, as are the benedictions that precede and follow the recitation of Shema and the kiddush blessing. Each berakhah begins with the full formula, a phrase that mentions both God’s name and God’s sovereignty, and concludes with a shorter phrase that mentions God’s name but not God’s sovereignty. The Sefer Harokeach (ch. 363), a 13th-century Ashkenazic compilation, suggests a reason for this distinction: in the beginning blessings we follow the opinion of R. Yochanan (B. Berakhot 40b), who requires malkhut, and in the concluding benedictions we follow the opinion of Rav, who does not.
18. Tosafot, Berakhot 40b, s.v. amar; Hilkhot Harosh, Berakhot 6:23; R. Yosef Karo, Beit Yosef, Orach Chayim 214.
19. See B. Berakhot 40b, several lines above the passage quoted at note 9. Rav accepts as valid a blessing recited in Aramaic, even though it does not mention the Tetragrammaton, because it does refer to God as Rachamana, “the Merciful One.” The Talmud derives the rule that a berakhah may be recited in any language from M. Sotah 7:1. Rambam (Yad, Berakhot 1:6) codifies this as follows: “all the berakhot may be recited in any language… (provided that the translated berakhah) includes a proper name of God (azkarah) and the mention of God’s sovereignty and that it maintains the substance of the original berakhah.”
20. Mishnah Berurah 214, no. 4.
21. Rambam (Yad, Yesodei Hatorah 6:2) identifies these as: Adonai (written either as the Tetragrammaton or as it is pronounced – alef – dalet – nun – yod); el; elo’ah; elohim; elohai; shadai; and tzeva’ot. The provision that these names never be erased applies only when they are written in Hebrew. On this, see our responsum no. 5762.1, “Proper Disposal of Religious Texts” (http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=1&year=5762 ).
22. Mishnah Berurah 214, in Sha`ar Hatziyun, no. 3. The argument is a classic kal vachomer, an a forteriori inference.
23. “Eternal,” used here as a substitute for Adonai, appears in some English translations of Jewish prayer texts. It is a suggested rendering of the written form of the Tetragrammaton, which may be related to the Hebrew root heh-vav-heh, “to be.” The translation “the Lord,” by contrast, renders the meaning of the Tetragrammaton in its spoken form, Adonai.
24. See above at note 5: it has long been our Reform practice to add the names of the Matriarchs to those of the Patriarchs in this berakhah. Alternatively, she could convert the expression to its feminine form: malkat ha`olam, “Sovereign of (literally, ‘Queen of’) the Universe.” The difficulty here, as one member of our Committee notes, is that in normal usage a queen is “sovereign” only in the absence of a legitimate king. Thus, the word malkah or “queen” does not express the concept of “sovereignty” in a sense as complete as that of melekh or “king.”
25. See, for example, Exodus 15:2, Psalms 118:18 and 135:4, where the name Yah is used with masculine verbs and adjectives.
26. A partial analogy to this is the fact the names Elohim and Eloheinu are plural in form, even though since Biblical times they have been read as singular nouns when referring to the God of Israel (see, most obviously, Genesis 1:1, where Elohim is paired with bara, a singular verb). Since we have long accepted that the God of Israel is One, such grammatical curiosities do not trouble us. The same might apply here, when we recognize gender as being irrelevant to our conception of God.
27. We use the word “minimal” because the author of the Mishnah Berurah, whom we follow here, undoubtedly did not intend his ruling as a “permit”of such berakhot in practice. He is speaking to a situation of bedi`avad (“after the fact”), in which a person has already recited such a benediction. This is evident from the wording in Mishnah Berurah 214, no. 4: one who mentions an azkarah other than the Tetragrammaton has fulfilled his obligation (yatzah). His point is that should one recite this “deviant” benediction one need not repeat it in its “correct” form inasmuch as it meets the minimum liturgical requirements. It is not, however, in principle “permitted” to construct the berakhah in that manner. Were that the case, Kagan would have used a word that definitely signifies permission (such as mutar, “it is permitted”).
28. See the CCAR’s Columbus Platform of 1937 http://ccarnet.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=40&pge_prg_id=3032&pge_id=1656,), section A. 1, “The Nature of Judaism.”
29. When translating the traditional Hebrew, this is generally accomplished through the use of the gender-neutral second person. Thus, “Praised are You, O God” avoids the masculine language of Barukh atah Adonai. Our prayerbooks will frequently translate a Hebrew third-person usage (“He”) into the English second person (“You”). A good example is Hu Eloheinu ein od in the Aleinu, which often appears in our liturgy as “You are our God, there is none else.”
30. See above, note 5.
31. A postscript: given that, as we have noted, one may recite a benediction in gender-neutral English and meet the halakhic requirements for a valid berakhah, one member of our Committee suggests that the congregation permit an individual called to the Torah to say the benediction in English. The majority do not join in this recommendation, on the grounds that we wish to encourage Hebrew literacy among our congregants and the use of Hebrew in our worship services.
If needed, please consult Abbreviations used in CCAR Responsa.